Yaroslav Askarov<\/a>, G, San Jose Sharks: Askarov has finally been able to prove himself since being taken No. 11 by the Nashville Predators in the 2020 NHL Draft and acquired by the Sharks in a trade on Aug. 23, 2024. He leads all rookie goalies in wins (nine) and games played (16, all starts) and has a 2.96 goals-against average and .910 save percentage this season. Askarov went 8-2-0 with a 1.88 GAA and .947 save percentage in 10 games in November.<\/p>\nThe 23-year-old extended his home winning streak to six games (1.79 GAA, .951 save percentage) with a 3-2 win against the Vancouver Canucks on Friday. He\u2019s allowed two goals or fewer in eight of his past 10 starts.<\/p>\n
Sharks coach Ryan Warsofsky likes the fact Askarov and Alex Nedeljkovic have competed and complemented each other to earn starts this season.<\/p>\n
“I think competition drives you to be great, and I think that’s what we’re seeing right now,” Warsofsky said. “I knew \u2018Ned\u2019 would be that type of guy and \u2018Asky\u2019 is just as competitive. I think it’s a great duo we got. They support each other when they’re in the net, and with our schedule we’re going to use both of them.”<\/p>\n
Askarov is coming off a season where he dominated in the American Hockey League (2.45 GAA, .923 save percentage in 22 regular-season games) with the San Jose Barracuda. He went 3-2 with an AHL-best 1.68 GAA and .935 save percentage in the Calder Cup Playoffs. Askarov went 4-6-2 with 3.10 GAA and .896 save percentage in 13 NHL games (12 starts) last season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The impact several rookies are making on the NHL is one of the major storylines of the 2025-26…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":319934,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-319933","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=319933"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319933\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/319934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=319933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=319933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=319933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}